Quincy developer donates boathouse to city

Tuesday

Feb 11, 2014 at 12:55 AMFeb 11, 2014 at 1:26 AM

Quincy shipyard developer Jay Cashman provided the city's high school crew club with its future home Monday, donating a former Coast Guard boathouse to the city and pledging to build a new dock for the facility. The 79-year-old boathouse, which eventually will be moved from its current location at the shipyard to the Mound Street Beach, is part of Mayor Thomas Koch's plan to revitalize the park and recreation offerings in Quincy Point.

Patrick Ronan The Patriot Ledger @pronan_Ledger

QUINCY – Without a practice facility, Alicia Golden said Quincy's high school crew club lacks an identity."The kids don't feel like they have an identity as 'Quincy Rowing,' so I feel like having a home is the first step in feeling like they are part of a program they can take pride in," Golden said.

Quincy shipyard developer Jay Cashman provided the club with its future home Monday, donating a former Coast Guard boathouse to the city and pledging to build a new dock for the facility. The 79-year-old boathouse, which eventually will be moved from its current location at the shipyard to the Mound Street Beach, is part of Mayor Thomas Koch's plan to revitalize the park and recreation offerings in Quincy Point.

The boathouse, built in Chatham, will serve as a home for the city's high school crew club, which consists of roughly 20 students from Quincy and North Quincy high schools and relies on Thayer Academy's equipment and dock at the Bay Pointe Marina in Quincy. The house will also be a rowing and boating center for the entire community.

Koch said the estimated value of the boathouse and a new dock is between $500,000 and $1 million.

"We're so fortunate in the city to have a guy like Jay Cashman," Koch said, adding that Cashman is a longtime supporter of the Quincy-based nonprofit Domestic Violence Ended, or DOVE. "He has been an absolutely incredible benefactor to the city."

Cashman, a Quincy native, said the boathouse is special because it has a lot of history.

"The Coast Guard saved a lot of people who got stranded in boats, and equipment wasn't what it was today," Cashman said. "This building represents a day in which these buildings were spotted up and down the whole coast of the United States of America."

In 2009, Cashman had the boathouse moved from Chatham to the Quincy shipyard with plans to store it while the Cape Cod town found a new home for it. After Chatham officials let Cashman know they had no room for it, the developer told Koch he wanted to donate it to the city.

Koch and Ward 2 City Councilor Brad Croall, who represents Quincy Point, are in the early stages of creating a master plan for Quincy Point's park and recreation area, which includes the boathouse at Mound Street Beach and making improvements to Fore River Field and Ray Dunn Field.

Nearly a century ago, Mound Street Beach had a boathouse and was a popular destination for boaters. But the boathouse was eventually taken down.